Concrete footings in Springfield IL - a steady base for your deck or addition

Most people call us when a builder or the city asks for footings before a deck, addition or garage can go up, or when an old deck has started to lean because its posts were never set deep enough. The price depends on how many footings you need, how deep they have to go at your address, whether a deck near the house has to reach down to your foundation's level, and how easy your yard is to dig. The schedule turns mostly on the permit, the weather and how long the concrete needs before anything is built on it. When I come out, I go over each of these at your address, because I want you to know exactly what you're paying for before we start.

Footings carry everything built above them, so I start by confirming the depth with the building office for your address rather than guessing. Then we mark where each footing goes from your plans, dig through the loose topsoil down to undisturbed soil at that depth, and set forms, the wooden molds that shape the concrete, so each footing comes out the size it was drawn. For a deck that sits close to the house, we plan the footings around your existing foundation so the new work doesn't disturb what's already holding up your home. We pour into clean, firm holes and let the concrete cure, the slow gain in strength it makes over its first days, before the forms come off and anyone builds on it.

Footing jobs often turn up other work. If the house or an old slab your deck will tie into has already sunk, foundation raising brings it back up first, because there's no sense setting a level footing against something that's out of level. When a new footing has to go through an existing patio, walk or garage floor, we use concrete cutting to open a clean hole instead of breaking up more slab than we need to.

In Springfield, the city's Building & Zoning Department issues building permits. If your property sits in a floodplain, you'll need the city's floodplain development permit before anything else. We check what the office asks for at your address and take care of the permit paperwork for our work when a permit applies. A city permit doesn't say your land suits the project, though. Its application leaves it to the owner and applicant to look into soil compaction and into mine subsidence, the ground sinking over old mines, and what that research turns up can affect how the footings are planned. If any of that falls to you, we let you know early. The city names the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, at 217-782-0588, as the place to ask. State law also keeps the city's structural rules at least as strict as the national model code for homes.

We're based in Springfield and work across the cities around it. A lot of the footing work we see replaces posts that were set on blocks or bags of concrete just under the grass and have tipped, lifted or settled over a few winters. We dig those out and set new footings at the depth the city gives, and we find the same shortcut on jobs in Chatham and Decatur. If you don't see your city on our site, please ask about your address.